Étienne Gihotwas
born in Valenciennes in the northern French Département
of Nord, on February 9, 17751. He was the son of Lambert Joseph
and Marie Anne (née Macklemy) Gihot. His father
was a drummer in the Dillon Irish Regiment in the
company commanded by Barthelemy Dillon that was then
garrisoned at the Valenciennes Citadel.2 His godfather was Étienne Mols of
the same regiment. Because his father was a
soldier, Étienne was an enfant de troupe3 so the army was responsible for his
education and probably his musical training. On
his sixteenth birthday, February 9, 1791, he
entered the service for military training as an enfant de troupe of
the 30ème Regiment Infanterie de
Ligne. He served under Napoléon
Bonaparte in 21e Regiment d'Infanterie
Ligne as a musician throughout the First Empire
period including the Russian Campaign (1812) and
Waterloo (1815, see his service record, below). On June
22, 1805 while stationed in Dunkirk, he was a
witness to the birth of Louise, daughter of Jean Pierre
Pruvotand
Marie Motte. Monsieur Pruvot was a fellow musician in 21e R.I.L.

Étienne Gihot married Caroline Sophie Erhart, a native
of Berlin and widow of Jean-Louis Lehmann.

After his military service Étienne Gihot became Premier
Cor du Grand Théâtre de Lyon. A Méthode Pour le Cor
(c. 1827) by J. Blanc is dedicated to Gihot (see below).

Étienne Gihot died in Lyon on March 26, 1833 at the age
of fifty-eight. The witnesses of record to his death
were Adolph Faucille, a mechanical engineer, and Antoine
Navaizard who was a wine merchant and a neighbor. His
widow, Caroline Sophie, died only three months later
on June 11, 1833 at the age of fifty-six. The
witnesses were horn-maker, Jean
Baptiste Tabard, and Jean Fréderic Lang, professor
of music.

Above left, Grand Théâtre, Lyon
designed by Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713-1780) in
1754. It was destroyed by fire in 1826. It was replaced
in 1831 on the same site by a theatre built by
Antoine-Marie Chenavard (right). Étienne Gihot
probably played in both.

Military Service
Record of Étienne Gihot with 21e
Regiment d'Infanterie Ligne4

Starting in 1793 Étenne Gihot served in the
Army of the Rhine and North, then moved to the
army of Sambre-et-Meuse, Belgium. He was
present at the siege of Dutch city of
Maëstricht in 1794, which was annexed and
became a French city of what would become the
First French Empire. He then moved to
the Army in Italy, serving in Rome, Naples and
other cities. He advanced quickly in
rank during these years, first to corporal on
April 7, 1797, then two years later to
sergeant (May 29, 1799), and finally the next
year to sergeant-major on September 3, 1800.
In 1806 and 1807 he served in Prussia and
Poland, then moved to Austria in 1809. In 1812
he took part in Napoléon's infamously
ill-fated invasion of Russia. In 1813 he was
sent to the 13th Corps, and in 1814
took part in the blockade of Hamburg.

With the abdication of Napoléon on April 11,
1814 the Bourbon monarchy was briefly
restored in France. During this time on
October 5, 1814, Étienne Gihot was awarded Chevalier de
la Légion d'Honneur by Louis XVIII
for his twenty-some years of active service.
On March 20, 1815, Napoléon returned to
Paris from his exile on Elba, temporarliy
ending the Restoration ("One-Hundred Days").
With the final defeat of Napoleon at
Waterloo, Étienne Gihot returned to
France where on September 1, 1815 he was
discharged by order of the king.5 On January 1, 1816, he
entered the Légion des Hautes-Pyrénées6 in Lyon with the title Chef de
Musique, and on October 1 the same
year signed an oath of allegiance to the
king as a "loyal
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur."
On December 29, 1820 the departmental
legions were converted into regiments and
the Légion
des Hautes-Pyrénées became the new
14e Régiment
d'Infanterie Légère. Étienne
Gihot retired from military service on
October 31, 1828.

Above, title page from Nouvelle Méthode de Cor by J.
Blanc, Professeur de Musique au Collége de
l'Arc à Dole. Jean Antoine Blanc was born January
21,1793, in Barcelona, Spain and died December 23,
1869, Lons-le-Saunier, Jura, France.
At left, medal of the
Légion d'Honneur with figure of Henry IV as it
appeared in 1814 under the restoration of the monarchy
when awarded to Étienne Gihot.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to M. Christian Declerck for all of his
assistance and particularly the leads to the Legion of
Honor archives and vital records regarding Étienne
Gihot.

Notes

1. There are
discrepencies among public documents regarding the
year of M. Gihot's birth. According to a transcript
from the registers of births in Valenciennes his birth
year was 1775, however according to the record of his
service with the Légion des Hautes-Pyrénées dated
October 5, 1814, he was born in 1776. (back)

2. The original Dillon
Regiment came from Ireland to France in 1690 as
part of a mutual exchange of troops. It remained as
part of the Irish Brigade in the service of
France recruiting from the expatriot Irish
community, and was commanded by subsequent generations
of the Dillon family. The Dillon Regiment was
part of the French expeditionary army commanded by
Comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), sent to help the
American Revolution in 1780. They were vital to the
American-French allied victory at Yorktown in
September 1781. In that year the regiment was
commanded as follows: Colonel, Count Arthur
Dillon; Second Colonel, Count Theobald Dillon;
Lieutenant- Colonel, Barthelemy Dillon. It is not
known whether Lambert Joseph Gihot was part of that
expedition.(back)

3. An enfant de troupe was a child whose
father was a non-commissioned officer (called
subaltern at the time) or soldier and who followed the
troops with his family. Unlike children of officers
who had schools to train them in the profession of
arms, these children had no way of having military
training other than to engage as a soldier. May
1, 1766, an order of Louis XV improved the lives of
these children by requiring that every company or
squadron of each regiment of the royal army, two
budget items would be reserved for the son of
non-commissioned officers or soldiers. Napoléon
Bonaparte, as 1st Consul enacted a law in 1800 which,
among other things, officially called such miiiltary
dependents "children of the troops." A child of the
regiment became a ward of the nation upon the death of
his military father. (back)

4. Regimental war record (Battles
and Combats) of 21e Regiment d'Infanterie
Ligne:

6. Following the Hundred Days, the
government of the Restoration wanted to destroy a
hotbed of partisans commited to the cause of the
deposed emperor. The old corps were dismissed and
replaced by departmental legions whose training center
was the administrative center of each department. Some
remnants of the old empire corps were brought into
this organization, however. Those of the 1st Light
were directed to Tarbès and were used as the core of
the Legion of Hautes Pyrénées. This first group joined
with former soldiers of various regiments, which,
following the disaster of Waterloo, returned to the
native land. Officers of the old army were called to
the administrative center of their department, to work
together in the formation of the legion. On January 1,
1816. the Legion of the Hautes-Pyrénées was formally
constituted and on August 25 it received its flag. The
following day it departed Tarbès, and successively
held garrisons at Aurillac (1816), Lyon (1817),
Carcassonne (1818-1819), where it became a legion of
light infantry, and in Toulon (1820 - 1821). On
October 23, 1820, a royal decree formed the
infantry into 80 regiments, including 60 of line and
20 light (all with 3 battalions). On December 29, 1820
the departmental legions were converted into
regiments. The Legion of the Hautes-Pyrénées became
the 14th Regiment of Light Infantry, and received a
new flag. (back)